Carnage
by NarratorGod18
Summary: 13 students studying abroad in a small town in Western Ireland are thrown head-first into an arena, with no reasoning given. No rules but one: last one standing, wins. M for bloody violence and pervasive language.


HUNGER

At first I think the alarm is my morning wake-up to go to school. This klaxon is louder and shriller, and has me out of my bed before I understand what's happening. I can hear Savanah and Adie upstairs, asking each other what's happening. Barbie's door pops open and I whip mine open as well. We almost collide in the cramped hallway. Pure fear is written all over her face.

"What the hell's going on?" she asks. I don't answer but push her into the kitchen. From there we run out the front door. We're joined by Adie and Savanah. I'm looking everywhere for signs of a fire. The door to our cottage is gaping open like a scream. I'm not going back to shut it.

We reach the central area where we're supposed to gather in case of a fire. Damp grass and thick earth squish between my bare toes. The night is cold. The rest of our classmates are out here shivering with us. The same questions are on everyone's lips: "What's that noise? What's going on? Is there a fire?" I do a quick head count, and find that all thirteen of us are here. I don't see any signs of our professors.

I take two steps towards their cottage.

The very air itself seems to explode. I throw myself down and cover my head. Acrid smoke clogs the night. People are screaming. I raise my head out of the grass.

All ten cottages are on fire. Tall columns of flame stretch up into the sky. It's like they're trying to blot out the pale half-moon. Smoke belches out of windows and doors. I gape at them, not comprehending the meaning of ten cottages on fire.

The screaming is coming from the group of my fellow students. Panic reigns supreme. Some of the girls are crying, but the flickering light keeps me from seeing much. I think I'm crying too.

I don't understand.

"We have to get out of here!" Kate says, waving her arms.

Her voice breaks the paralysis of panic. Without waiting for the others, I start sprinting for the main road. The heat from the fires presses on my skin. I can feel the smoke creeping into my lungs. I keep running.

The air improves the closer I get to town. Jared, Chris, and Angela catch up to me. I try to stop hacking up smoke and talk to them.

"We have to get the fire department!" Jared says.

"And the Guarda. That shit was insane," Angela says. She's already moving, so we hustle to keep up with her.

"Is everybody okay?" I ask, trying to look back over my shoulder to count the group straggling behind us. We might have all thirteen still.

"Everybody was out of the cottages before they blew up," Chris says. "I don't know now, though."

We round the corner by the funeral home to the town itself, and stop. The shops and homes in Louisburgh aren't on fire or smoking, but look like they were bombed out weeks ago.

"What?" I blurt.

"No way." The streetlights are all in perfect working order. They cast long, jagged shadows on the piles of debris before us. None of the buildings have all of the glass left in their windows. The _crunch_ of sneaker on glass makes us all flinch. It's just Jared. My heart is trying to beat out of my ribcage.

"What is going on?" Lily asks, running up to join us. "What the hell?" She goes quiet when she sees the wreckage of what used to be Louisburgh. My face feels numb. A cold breeze off the ocean tugs at my shorts and t-shirt. It keens through the town, almost like a dirge. Everything else is quiet.

"There's something over there," Jared says, breaking our silence. I look to where he's pointing. I can see a dark shape in the town square.

"Let's go check it out," Chris says. I follow along in his wake. I don't want to step on glass with no shoes on. The closer we get, the easier it becomes to make out a big hunk of something dull and metal. When we're in the square itself, realization hits me like a kick to the teeth.

"Is that…" I start to say.

"That looks a lot like a Cornucopia," Lily says. My fingertips tingle with fear and anticipation.

"What the –" is all I hear from Chris and Jared, almost at the same time. The rest of what they were saying is gone.

I'm wrapped in darkness. It presses against my skin. I don't know if my eyes are open or closed. I can't tell if it's warm or cold here. My fingertips touch something smooth and icy. I flinch away. Taking a deep breath, I put my hands back out. The surface could be steel, or some other kind of metal. My hands slide on this material in an unbroken circle. When I stand on my tiptoes and stick my hands straight up, the surface is above me too. I can't feel any joints or seams in it. How did I get in here?

I'm not wearing my pajamas anymore. I can't see anything, but I can feel lightweight fabric covering my legs, like thick yoga pants, and a stretchy long-sleeve shirt whose sleeves pass my wrists. At least I'm not shivering anymore.

A purple screen appears in front of my eyes. I shy away, blinded. I have to squint and blink to read the black print on the screen: WELCOME CONTESTANT TWO. A button labeled 'continue' is below the text. I reach out, tucking in my elbow, and press the button. The touch-screen gives under my fingers. The screen changes.

A needle pricks the back of my neck. I yelp, but don't have enough room to swat it away. It remains there for a handful of long moments; then the pressure vanishes. At first I think it must've taken a blood sample or something like that.

My pulse redoubles. Sweat coats my skin. I'm hyperventilating. I can see each individual pixel on the plasma screen, which is now flashing through the rainbow in slow motion.

Now it's not just going through colors, but counting down numbers. 60, 59, 58, 57, 56… with agonizing slowness, the seconds tick by. My brain is like a bullet train. I think I know very well what comes next. It's about time I got a grip and accepted what it means. There will be time for regrets later.

30. A whispery whooshing noise starts. I think it means I'm moving. I have no frame of reference. A tendon in my leg is twitching. I try to slow my breathing.

20. The ceiling slides back. The walls fall away. Daylight breaks on my sensitive eyes. All twelve of my fellow students are here. Each stands on a pedestal, just like me.

13.

12.

11.

10.

I lock eyes with all of them in turn.

9.

8.

7.

6.

Weapons and armor are strewn all around.

5.

Closest to me is a poison dart gun.

4.

May as well.

3.

Oh God.

2.

Wait.

1.

Now?

Buzzer.

Go.

Every muscle in my body launches me forward. I dive onto the gun. It slips out of my over-eager hands. I have to keep my eyes up.

Lily has a sword. In one fluid motion she lops Barbie's head clean off. It rolls away from her body. Her eyes stare at the sky. Blood everywhere.

Little Jess, with a face like war, hurls a dagger. The hilt grows out of Kate's left eye. Kate topples over. Jess slits her throat for good measure. The pavement is looking red.

I bring the dart gun up to my lips. I shoot. Jared falls. Beginner's luck. Tears on my cheeks. It's like the world is full of water.

Horrified and satisfied, my hands seize on an axe, a hunting knife, and a bundle of light armor. I get my feet under me and run. The beach is the first place I can think of going. Adie falls in next to me. I raise my axe.

"Truce!" she says, holding her hands out. I lower the axe. I don't think I could have killed her in cold blood. We run together, breath heaving in and out in unison. Adie managed to grab a short sword before leaving the Cornucopia and it whaps against her legs with every stride.

"Are you okay?" I gasp when we've gotten to the fork in the road that leads to the beach. She nods. There's a spatter of dried blood on her cheek, but she doesn't look hurt. I shrug into the body armor with shaking fumbling fingers.

"This is actually happening," she says. "Holy shit."

"C'mon, we have to keep running," I say, setting my feet in motion again. I can still feel that injection spiking my pulse. If I stop moving, I'm going to scream.

"Maggie, did you kill anyone back there?" Her question makes me stutter to a halt. The drugs in my bloodstream want me to keep going. My conscience is rooting me to the spot.

"I killed Jared with a poisoned dart," I say, forcing each word out of my mouth. "I don't know why. I could've just run away, like almost everyone else." I turn to look at her now that I've gotten my confession out of the way. "Did you see..?"

She nods, once. It's plenty of confirmation.

We keep moving towards the beach, but at a walk. I've taken this road hundreds of times while here in Louisburgh, but something feels different about this. And it's not just the body armor, the weapons, and the blood on my hands. "Adie?" I ask, keeping my voice as conversational as possible. "Does this feel weird?"

"Do you think we're actually in an arena?" she asks. Her hand is on the short sword's hilt.

"Probably," I say. "We were in Louisburgh just yesterday, and everything was fine then. The buildings… it looked like they'd been destroyed for a few weeks, not a few hours." I look around. The sheep fields are full of menace.

"Well then we can't assume that anything's real here, can we?" Adie asks, unsheathing the sword. It's not a natural motion. I curl my hands into fists.

"No, we can't." I can feel the drug start to leave my blood stream. Fear creeps back in its place.

Instead of belaboring the point further, we keep walking. Running is a waste of energy when there's nothing specific to be running from. It's hard to tell my instincts that.

The beach, which is under normal circumstance maybe a 10-minute walk away, appears over the next hill. I stop short. "Yeah, we're in an arena." My tongue is dry. I swallow, but the roof of my mouth is like sandpaper.

"Should we scout around to see what else is different?" Adie asks. I like that she has constructive ideas of what to do. In all likelihood I would've stood here looking at the water for at least another 10 minutes. Those precious minutes might've cost me my life.

"Yes. That sounds like a better idea." No shelter here, no way to protect ourselves from attack. That should be priority number one.

We turn our backs on the beach and trudge back the way we came. My flight instinct is still screaming. I try to ignore it.

Footsteps on the road ahead. I dive into the ditch and ready my axe. Adie tries to slip into the opposite ditch, but isn't fast enough. An arrow protrudes from her stomach. Screaming, she barrels forward. I try not to breathe. Scuffling shoes on asphalt, and a deep male voice yells, "Die already!" Adie screams again, a feral noise that makes my hair stand to attention.

Something rips. Retreating footsteps, and a muffled _thud_. I peer around from my hiding place to see Adie lying in the road. The arrow in her stomach has snapped in half, and there's a long bloody cut along her collarbone.

I can tell she's dying.

Tears warm my face. I force myself out of the ditch and crawl over to her side. Should I have protected her? Was it my responsibility to take the arrow she couldn't dodge? She's crying too, but so soft that I almost can't tell.

"Maggie…" I swallow my sorrow and listen. "I… kill Stan for me." I choke on something between a hysterical chuckle and a sob.

"I will," I say, taking her cool hand between my two warm palms. "I will. I'm sorry I didn't help." She shakes her head.

"Just… avenge me," she chokes out. Her breath stops, and I watch the light leave her eyes.

Okay. I get 30 seconds to be sad and then I bury her. Anguish threatens to asphyxiate me. So I sob without noise. When my mourning time is up, I get my feet under me and walk to the side of the road. The house is rubble, but the garden remains. I pick all the blooms that I can find, careful not to let them touch the fresh blood on my armor.

"Just like Rue, huh?" I ask Adie's corpse, tucking the flowers around her body. Just like I promised her after we saw the movie. I have just enough to outline her in blossoms. I have to take deep breaths. I have to lock this away. I can't let it get me. I can go mad with grief later, but not now.

Chances are Stan headed back into town once he killed Adie. I don't want to go to the beach, so I cut across a farm field to the left, sticking close to the fence. A thick forest stands where none has ever been before. I figure if this game is going to get weird, it's time I went to it instead of letting it come to me.

I don't see another living soul while crossing the field. I can hear distant conversation, though. I'm hoping it's being carried to me on the wind, or that this injection has given me super-sensitive hearing or something. The alternative, that people are near and I can't see them, gives me the creeps.

Crossing the brush before the forest is stressful. The soles of my feet are tight. My lungs ache. I don't think I'm breathing very much. There's a pain in my elbow and I don't know where it came from.

I feel a familiar prick on the arch of my heel. Gasping, I feel the energy and anger overwhelm my blood stream. It clarifies my purpose and erases the guilt. I want to take off sprinting again.

This dose isn't erasing my rationality, though. I'm able to creep through the lighter part of the forest without making very much noise. Only the occasional twig snap and crunchy leaf betrays my presence.

I see a head of blonde hair slipping through the woods to the left and ahead of me. I sneak right up behind Rebecca. I'm less than five feet away when she pivots. Her sword is already extended. I slide to the left.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is not a stroll in the woods. This is battle.

My gloves slip off of the axe haft. I have to grab the sword as it comes around again at my face. The Kevlar begins to tear. I don't think she drew blood. I don't have time to find out. I shove the blade away. While she's off balance, I rip the hunting knife from its sheath on my hip. I need to be unpredictable to win. So I lunge forward and tackle her to the ground.

The world becomes a kaleidoscope of trees, dirt, and limbs. I hope I don't stab myself.

At the bottom of the unanticipated hill, she shoves me away. I stay on my hands and knees. My knife is somehow still in my hand. All I need is one good swing, right at the jugular…

The bush to my left growls. I stop breathing. Rebecca and I lock eyes. We're already off and sprinting when three massive dogs burst out of the undergrowth.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, run," I gasp. I'm glad for the reinjection – without it, I might've stopped running. I'm waiting for the right moment to turn and kill these things. I need more space to maneuver. Tree branches whip by. They raise welts on my skin. I'm too scared to feel them stinging. The dogs are gaining on us.

I spare a glance at Rebecca. It would be so easy to trip her. She's already looking at me. I veer to the left three feet. I don't want to lose track of her but I'd also rather not be dog meat.

We're coming up on trees with low-hanging branches. Leaping high, I grab one. My feet are already scrambling for purchase to climb higher.

The dogs are snapping at my heels. I'm just above their ability to reach me. The tree branches are slippery with moss. Twice I feel my grip loosening, and cling tighter. When I'm fifteen feet off the ground, I stop and take stock of the situation.

Rebecca climbed the tree next to mine. She's splitting time between keeping an eye on me and an eye on the circling dogs. We both know who they are, though I wasn't expecting them until much later in the game. Three of our group died at the Cornucopia – there are three dogs here. They must be Barbie, Kate, and Jared, sent back for vengeance. The dog with blue-green eyes won't leave my tree alone. It makes sense. I did kill him, albeit on accident.

I whoop in gulps of oxygen and stretch my tired muscles out. I've been running a lot today, even with the adrenaline boost, and it's taking its toll. Sunlight dapples the forest floor. The dogs howl beneath my dangling feet. I lean back against the tree trunk. My body doesn't want me to wait. My brain knows better.

I don't know how long we're treed by our friends in dog form. The sun wanders across the sky. My muscle groups take turns spasming. I test the edge of my axe on the tree trunk. The dogs snap at the wood shavings.

At long last, they sprint off, deeper into the forest. Rebecca and I exchange glances again. This will be interesting. Gritting my teeth, I slip down first. My boots hit the forest floor with a loud _crunch_. I wince. The dogs don't return.

Rebecca drops back down to earth. Her boots make less noise. I'm jealous. I'm also nervous. My hunting knife is the closer option. But, she hasn't gone for her sword yet. I take a deep breath through my nose and relax my tense posture.

Before she can say anything, I turn around and run for my life.

I don't know what my problem is. I feel like I should be able to kill without worrying – I mean, I've already killed Jared. When it comes to defending myself I have no qualms. But killing in cold blood is not something I've mastered yet. And unless I master it soon, I have no chance of surviving for much longer.

I listen for a variation to the beat of my footsteps. It doesn't sound like she's following me. I run for three hundred paces or so before slowing to a walk. I'm not expecting anything to look familiar, but part of me is still trying to make landmarks.

I wish I could walk without making so much noise. I stop, filtering out the birdsong and wind in the leaves.

I get one crackle of leaf litter to alert me to the presence behind me. My axe is the first thing I go for. It blocks Rebecca's overhand swing and jars the blade out of her hand. She yells; a wordless noise designed to throw me off-balance. It works. I stumble back. She dives for her sword. I ready myself to make the lethal swing.

A crossbow bolt strikes the ground between us. I scuttle backwards, keeping the axe between my body and Rebecca. The next bolt punches through her armor into the muscle of her shoulder. She screams. I don't hesitate. I turn and run.

I hear another bolt whistle through the air. I must be imagining it, but I swear I can hear it kill her. I'm crying, but running still. I don't want to be next.

Two bolts hit trees behind me. I zig and zag at random. I even dive to the ground once, scrambling right back up to my feet. After a while, I realize that I haven't been shot at for a while.

I wonder who was doing the shooting. I'm not about to go back and find out. I don't know where to go from here. I squint my eyes partway shut and stick my arm straight out. When I open my eyes, I'm pointing to the right. If I turn too far I'm going to end up retracing my steps. So I set off into the dark center of the forest.

Or, what I thought would be the heart of the woods. Instead of more trees, I find myself at the base of a mountain. It reminds me of Croagh Patrick or Slieve League: not too steep but full of rocks that look like they once formed a staircase. Around the height of the trees, clouds obscure what I assume is the rest of the mountain.

I square my shoulders and start climbing. It's going to be cold, but I need cover and the height advantage over the dogs. Who knows – by sundown there could be more of them. I don't recall how tributes became dogs in the book, but I don't think it happened this fast. Adie and Rebecca could become dogs any time now.

For all I know, more could be dead as well.

Despair swallows me up. How can I keep fighting against odds like these? My friends are dead. I have to outlive the others to make it through this twisted game. And that very well may mean killing more. Of course, I could just hide out up here and defend myself if and when I'm attacked… I discard the idea. I don't have the survival equipment, or the skills, to hide for however many days this takes. The only items at the Cornucopia were weapons.

Nobody intended for this game to last for very long.

By the numbers I know, there are eight of us left. I have no idea how large this arena is. It's very possible that this will be a quiet evening.

Without my noticing, night has fallen. I scowl at the darkness around me and feel my way forward. Climbing the mountain terrifies me. I'm plagued by the constant worry that I'm going to break a limb or fall off of a cliff.

After what feels like forever, I have to stop – my heart is aching from the stress of this blind climb. I plop down in the grass. It's soggy but so is the air. Plus, I'm feeling the full-body ache of the day's exertions by now. So I place my head on the ground and search for the gates to dreamland.

*

I find out which direction is east when the sun pokes up over the horizon. My eyelids click when I blink. I haven't slept at all the past… however many hours it's been. The sky did strange things during my vigil. Sometimes it would seem like it was getting brighter, mimic an almost dawn, and plunge back into inky midnight. I don't believe it is real morning until the sun appears. Even then, I'm still having difficulty with the progression and pace of time. I disregard it as best I can, and clamber to my feet. There's a thin sheen of moisture on my skin and armor. I didn't notice until now; I guess I went numb sometime in the night and adjusted. Now that I'm up and moving again, I'm beset by pins and needles.

Speaking of needles, I could use a good adrenaline rush right now. I'd settle for caffeine, or even a glass of water. Something, anything, to convince myself to be awake would be much appreciated.

Of course, now of all times, the game designers are withholding the pep-up injection I got used to yesterday. That luxury will, in all probability, be a thing of the past at this point in the game.

It's a trippy experience, trying to anticipate what the game makers are going to do based off of what I remember from the books and the movie and my own twisted reasoning. It gives me a headache.

My feet have brought me back to the base of the mountain. I frown at the homogeneous woods and start walking to the left. If I remember right, town should be this way. I want to see what's on the other side, or if there is another side.

Birds flit from tree to tree. Their songs are familiar. They're the same birds that sing outside my bedroom in the morning. Well, that _sang_, to be accurate.

That line of thinking isn't good for me right now.

The woods ends sooner than I thought it would. I keep one hand on my axe handle. My knife is already in my hand. I don't want to get caught sleeping today.

Sleep would be nice, though…

A crossbow quarrel snaps a branch off the tree next to me. I bury my face in the undergrowth. The next bolt pins my left hand to the dirt. I scream. It's agony.

But I can't scream. That attracts attention. Attention is bad. I bite my lip until it bleeds. Better than showing myself as a target again. The bolt didn't pass all the way through my hand. I'm going to be fine. That's a lie. I'm going to have to be fine.

I don't stand. Instead, I army crawl back deeper into the woods. No further bolts are fired. Trembling, I get to my knees. Still nothing. I stand. The only sounds I hear are animal ones. I force the air out of my lungs and draw fresh air in.

I think it might be kinder to my brain if I just cut my hand off. With each beat of my heart, blood is pumped past the blunt tip of the arrow in ways it wasn't designed to be pumped. At least one of the bones in my hand has to be broken.

What the hell do I do now? I wish I knew more about how the human body works. Maybe then I would know if it's safe to take this thing out, or if I should leave it in to keep my blood pressure from plummeting or something equally stupid. I'm light-headed, though whether it's from lack of food, water, rest, or blood, I'd be hard-pressed to say.

I have to keep it together.

I don't take the quarrel out. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger, right? I keep to the tree line. Right now, crossing the field is too much for my shot nerves.

I walk all the way around the edge of the woods. It's not as far as I hoped it would be. The sun is at what might be high noon. I'm starting to see things that don't exist. Now's as good a time as any to cross the field.

I'm halfway across when I hear screaming. Not just screaming, of course. Someone's also yelling. And… a chorus of snarling. I get goosebumps. The dog pack has grown.

I feel like a deer trapped between two sets of highway headlights. From my scalp to my toes I'm one tense muscle with no clue where to go. The frozen moment stretches out for years.

Rosie appears over a slight rise. She's streaked in mud and blood. Also, she's running right for me. Chris isn't far behind her. The dogs aren't far behind him.

My feet know what to do. My legs are already screaming their protests. I ignore them. Not being eaten is much more important than being sore. The fields don't offer much in the way of variety of terrain that I can see. I increase my pace. The dogs start baying.

A pothole yawns below my left foot. The grass rushes up to meet my face. I fall. All the air I've ever breathed slams out of my lungs. I think I bite my tongue. Copper blood fills my mouth. The crossbow bolt is gone from my hand. I try to push myself upright with just my right hand. I get to my knees before the first dog catches up to me.

My knife appears in my hand. I slash at its brown eyes. It darts back. I get my right foot under me. The dog snaps at my injured hand. I feint to the right. It ducks to the left. I stab down at its paw. Somehow, the blade reaches its mark. The dog retreats, whining.

Chris runs by. I consider throwing my knife at him. It's a dumb idea. I keep the weapon in my hand. Rosie, on the other hand, stops five feet to my left. She turns on the dogs. I can see she's favoring her right side. There's a crossbow bolt buried in her torso. "YOU BASTARD," she screams after Chris. She turns to glare at me. "Come on!" Bewildered, I get to my feet. Walking backwards is a horrible idea. But, it's all that keeps the dogs from attacking.

After thirty feet, we've been herded and surrounded. Rosie's shoulder blades are pressed to mine. I don't know why we didn't start out back-to-back. She's got a katana in one hand, a hammer in the other. I switch my knife for the axe. The dogs circle. There are five of them, including the one I maimed. Even when limping, it still looks menacing.

The dog with a grudge lunges in at me. I whip my axe down at its spine and miss. The motion gets the dog to back off. The stalemate continues. I wonder if I should've written a living will before now. Another dog darts in towards me. I swing up with the blunt side of the axe. The blow connects on the dog's jaw. Its head snaps back. I think its eyes are crossed.

Rosie screams. Next second I'm falling over. Or, I'm being pushed over, by Rosie's falling body. The force of the dog's leap carries it on over us both. The other dogs stop moving. Rosie tries to crawl away. I stay where I am. The world isn't solid enough for me to be planning escape right now. I hear the attacking dog snarl. Teeth sink into flesh in the corner of my eye. I tilt my chin to watch. The dog shakes Rosie like a doll. She flops back and forth. Blood speckles the ground. I get one good look at the killer dog's eyes – sharp, bright blue – before my eye snap closed.

Playing dead is hard when every part of you is straining to stay alive.

I feel a wet nose press against the back of my neck. Not moving is hard. The dog snuffles once, twice. Then they're gone.

I look up to see the pack leaving. One casts a baleful look back at me. I understand the message. I owe the game makers now. They must have called the dogs off. I'm sure there's something worse waiting for me in the immediate future. For the moment, I roll over onto my back and sit up.

Rosie's corpse is staring at me. I'm too tired and detached to freak out about it. I limp over to close her eyes. I also trade my axe for her katana. I don't have time to do anything else for her. She's going to come back as a dog trying to kill me again anyway. And soon, if the addition of two dogs is anything to go by.

When I stand up, I can see where Louisburgh is. I walk to it with my katana unsheathed.

The town square is the same as it was before. The Cornucopia is devoid of life. The weapons and armor are all gone. I'm not sure why I wanted to come back here. I put a hand on the dull metal of the Cornucopia. All I want to know is 'why'. I don't get an answer.

"Hey." I whirl around. Chris has a mace in one hand, a short sword in the other.

"Hi." I'm waiting for the other foot to drop. So far, everything seems okay. He has a haunted look in his eyes, though. I'm sure I look the same.

"Is she…?" I take a second to figure out who he's talking about. I nod. My eyes burn with tears. He closes his eyes for a moment. Then we're back to our standoff.

I can't keep this charade up for very long. If it comes down to a contest of physical strength, I'm going to lose. The only way I might be able to beat him is if I do something very clever very soon. I'm not feeling very clever at the moment. I'm feeling like a good long nap is in order. Weariness is seeping into the marrow of my bones. My left hand is throbbing. My eyelashes keep gluing together when I blink. I might be swaying on my feet. Chris takes a step forward. When I do nothing, he takes another.

I'm hoping it'll be over with soon.

He's almost within reach when his arm grows a crossbow bolt. He swears, dropping the mace. It crushes my big toe. I start crying. He scrambles back. I look up.

Lily appears on top of the Cornucopia. There's a half-full quiver of bolts on her back. The crossbow is in her hand. Another quarrel is loaded and ready. Her face is impassive. Chris's swearing a blue streak at her, at the crossbow, at this situation. It's not doing any good. Lily hits the trigger mechanism. The bolt digs deep into Chris's ankle.

He buckles to the ground. I'm still crying. My foot hurts. Lily sends me a cold look. I shut up. Part of me wants to fight against the fact that I'm next. The other part of me is too sad and sleepy to do anything constructive.

Lily hops down from the Cornucopia. She loads another crossbow bolt. Chris stabs at her with the short sword. He seems surprised when he draws blood. Lily looks down at the line of blood below her knee. She presses the crossbow to Chris's temple. I can't watch.

The string snaps back.

I don't let myself look. Instead I start creeping around the other side of the Cornucopia. I shouldn't have come here. I need to get back to the woods. At least there there's some small amount of shelter available there. I sheathe my katana. I need to try to run, without cutting my own head off.

I slide around until the metal hulk is between me and Lily. Still moving with agonizing slowness, I get maybe ten or fifteen feet away.

Then Stan morphs out of the rubble on my right.

I freeze. He's got a bow, strung and nocked. And the arrow is pointed right at my face.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

I count to five in my head. Neither of us has moved. I'm not aware of where Lily is anymore. I throw a brief prayer out to the universe and run. The bow string twangs. I feel the air move. The arrow grazes my shoulder. The thrill of the near miss adds speed to my tired legs.

I'm clear out of town and plunging back into the woods. I can hear Stan giving chase. But he's not catching up to me. He's not shooting at me, either.

The barbed arrow catches me in the back of the left knee. It punches through my leg at an angle. I see the tip poking out from under my kneecap. It's the last clear image I have.

The ground is not forgiving.

When I tumble to a halt, I'm on the edge of a small clearing. The arrow is twisted in my knee. The agony it is inspiring is beyond anything I've ever felt. I'm surprised I haven't passed out. In fact I'm so surprised that I don't feel the need to scream.

Stan walks up to me. He has a sword in his hand now. He must have gotten rid of the bow. I struggle to sit up. I have to keep both hands clamped on my knee. I look up at him with a forced smile. More of a fear grimace. This is a primal situation, after all.

"Know what this reminds me of? 'I used to be an adventurer like you, until I took an arrow to the knee'…" I wait for his reaction. I think the congealing blood is gluing my hands onto my knee. Not good if I need to go for my katana.

"Ha!" He says it instead of laughing. My stomach evaporates. "That's not funny enough." The sword point rises. I don't want to, but I close my eyes and flinch away. I think I might be crying.

Something rustles in the bushes behind me. The tip of Stan's sword slides between the plates of Kevlar. A line of searing pain cuts into my collarbone. I lurch away, falling over on my wounded side. The arrow shaft snaps. I yelp.

A ferocious war cry breaks the air. Air rushes over me, along with something more substantial. I press myself closer to the ground. A wet _thnk_ hits my ears. Breath puffs out of my open mouth. I don't want to look up. I'm going to have to at some point.

Angela is standing over Stan's lifeless body. Blood drips from the tip of her sword. She turns with a slow and controlled movement that chills my heart. Her glare makes me want to hide under a rock and never resurface.

My katana isn't in its sheath like I thought it was. It must've slipped out after Stan shot me in the knee. It's now wedged point-first into the ground some twenty feet away. I unsheathe my hunting knife.

A needle pricks the small of my back. Energy floods my exhausted limbs. I get to forget my wounded left side for now. Flinging the knife at Angela's face, I shamble over to my katana. I'm able to get the sword out of the ground and into a guard position before Angela is on me.

Her attack sends me staggering. I regain my footing. We trade blows back and forth. This adrenaline dose is stronger than before. It's all that's keeping me alive.

Angela deals me a vicious chop that slides past my guard. The blade cleaves towards my helmet. I try to dodge it. It lodges in the crease between two overlapping Kevlar plates.

I use one hand to grab the sword, right by the guard. With the other, I whip the katana around and stab straight through one of her lungs. She gasps. I feel the movement transfer up along the blade in my hand. It's disgusting. Numb, I pull the blade out. She crumples to the ground. I slit her throat. A fountain of blood coats the front of my armor. It's impossible to tell that my outfit used to be camo print.

The adrenaline is gone. I crash to the grass, sobbing and choking in turn. I summon the energy to vomit. There's nothing but acid to heave up.

I can't believe this. If I weren't coated in scalding hot blood, I wouldn't believe it. Even with undeniable evidence, I'm still having a hard time coping. This can't be real.

A twig snaps behind me. I whip around, katana raised. No one's there.

The panic reminds me that Lily can't be far from here. Somehow I've stayed alive this long. Based on what I've seen today, there are four of us left. Including me. Lily, who I've seen too much of; but then there's Savanah and Jess, who I haven't seen enough of. I haven't seen Savanah since the original Cornucopia. But she wasn't in the dog pack…

All I know is that not many of my classmates, my friends, are still alive right now. And that knowledge scares me. But I can't stay put – with the drug humming under my skin, I feel like the whole world is shaking. And that's when I'm standing still.

The beach is once again my go-to destination. The tide has gone down since I was here yesterday, and more of the sand and rocks are accessible. My lips twist up in a parody of a smile as I remember going on runs from the cottages to here and back. I trudge across the wet, firm line of sand. My favorite rock is vacant and clean. I don't sit on it, but stand next to it, staring out at Clare and Achill Islands.

Battle sounds ring out behind me. I duck behind the rock. The commotion is coming from the entrance to the beach. I peer out around the comforting bulk of the rock.

Jess and Lily are locked in ferocious combat by the cliffs. Jess has a trident and Lily has Chris's mace. So far, Jess's reach is working in her favor. But, she doesn't have Lily's cold calculation. The fight lasts another few minutes. Small wounds are sustained on both sides. The finishing blow comes when Jess scoops up a handful of sand and flings it at Lily's face. "BEST FRIENDS FOR NEVER!" she screams as she drives the trident through Lily's heart.

Lily's dead before she hits the sand.

I retreat further behind my rock. And then there were three, I guess. I didn't expect Lily to die because of such a clichéd trick, since I'm guessing she killed at least three other members of our group.

Behind me, I hear Jess yell, "Savanah! She's over here! Get her!" I pop up over the top of the rock. Jess is crouched next to Lily's dead body. She's cradling her wounded arm to her body. She's also pointing at me with her other hand.

By the time I see Savanah, seven feet to my left, I know I'm done for. She has a long halberd and I've got a tiny sword, if I can get to it or find the strength to wield it, and she's already standing on top of the rock in front of me, looking down with an pokerfaced, almost cruel, expression, and saying, "Sorry", right before she slashes my throat wide open.

*

Surprise, surprise, I'm not dead.

Well, maybe that's being too optimistic. I'm still thinking and breathing. This body doesn't feel familiar, though. For one, my refocusing eyes are too low to the ground. Muscles are in all the wrong places. My vision is sharper than usual.

The solidifying clue is that my world is monochromatic. Unless I'm trapped in a grayscale world, which I'm pretty sure I'm not, I have been reincarnated as a dog.

A human face swims into my line of vision.

"Hello Maggie," the face says. It takes me a minute to work out the garbled human language reaching new dog ears, but we get there. "How are you adjusting?"

I bark.

"Good," the human says. I wish he had been able to understand what I meant by that bark. It wasn't complimentary or positive. But, I can't tell him different unless I bite him, and I don't want that to be my first act as a dog.

"We have one more little job for you, Maggie. You and your friends have already put on a very good show, and we're all very proud of you, but there's a little power dynamic happening that we here at The Company aren't interested in. So, you and the other ten are going back in right now, instead of later, and we're ending this. Definitively."

The 'we' pronoun is screwing with my brain. Half the time it seems like he's including himself in this weird tableau. I doubt he's going to die so that his consciousness can be repotted into a synthetic dog's body.

I lose track of everything for a long time. When the world settles back into recognizable patterns, I'm in the arena again. The world is just different enough to not bother me, though. I start sniffing at all the new smells in the undergrowth. My mind is blown by just how many things there are to smell!

A sharp shock pricks the back of my neck. A disembodied voice says, "Stay focused. You have a job to do. Don't you want to revenge your own death?"

Oh. I do think I want that.

Deep-seated rage explodes from somewhere within me. I want to kill. Savanah ended my life. I want to return the favor.

I can smell my pack around me. There are eleven of us all told. All of us are as angry as I am. I can smell the emotion on their pelts. As one, we surge forward, noses casting for the scent.

The dog on our left flank, Kate, catches the scent first. She has the same score to settle with Jess that I have with Savanah. She starts baying. The rest of us latch onto it. We take up the call with one voice.

They've moved back into town. Just like the two star-crossed lovers in the book, they've taken their last stand on top of the Cornucopia, where we can't reach them. I curse, which in Dog is a feral snarl. Our pack mobs the Cornucopia. There's no purchase to be found. So we wait.

My ears have adjusted enough to hear and understand English, though I don't know how long that's going to last. Savanah and Jess are talking, and both are crying. I turn my ears towards them and wait.

"We can't give in, Savanah! They want us to kill each other," Jess says. "We have to prove them wrong."

"We don't know who we're dealing with here, Jess. They might kill us both if we don't give up," Savanah says. She's got her halberd between them. It's not looking good for Jess.

A loudspeaker blares. I whine and try to shake the drilling noise out of my ears.

"You have thirty seconds," the loudspeaker says. Savanah tenses her shoulders.

"Sorry," I hear Savanah whisper, just before she shoves Jess off the edge of the Cornucopia. The dog-forms of Stan and Angela lunge forward to tear her into tiny pieces.

Savanah collapses, sobbing, onto the hard metal of the Cornucopia.

The loudspeaker sounds smug when it announces, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner."

Then there's nothing else – darkness arrives, and I leave.


End file.
